Technically Incorrect

I cannot imagine how much fun it is to work at a pizza-making plant.

Indeed, the mere fact that there exist plants to make pizza seems entirely unedifying to me.

So I cannot help but feel a tinge of sympathy for three workers who were allegedly caught casting a furtive eye upon some material of a pornographic nature while pumping out pizza for the man.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, staff at the Green Isle Foods pizza-making plant in Naas, Ireland, will be calling for more strikers to protest the firing of their three frustrated colleagues.

There are those who believe this is food porn.

(Credit: CC Foodies/Flickr)

The Irish Congress of Trades Unions has granted approval for the plant to be picketed by naked women. Well, perhaps I am imagining the "naked women" part.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, representing the three men, is disputing the very facts surrounding their dismissal.

"One of our members received an e-mail from outside the plant and was essentially dismissed for receiving an e-mail," TEEU general secretary designate, Eamon Devoy told the Telegraph.

I am guessing that the e-mail did not contain pictures of rolling Irish hills. Or perhaps it did.

Although a spokesman for the company told the Leinster Leader that this was "a cut and dried case of dismissal for people who seriously breached IT policy by accessing and e-mailing adult material of a serious nature."

Yet I am touched to hear that locals have come out in support of the workers. The Leader reports that they have delivered doughnuts to the picketing workers.

Oh, and pizza.

September 11, 2001, gave many people pause for thought. But how many can say that such a dark day made them want to cook?

That was the interesting claim made by Preeti Mistry, the 33-year-old executive chef with Google's Bon Appetit management company. She made her declaration on the latest episode of Bravo TV's "Top Chef," in which she was a contestant.

Was.

For Mistry was removed by the judges after serving a paltry pasta salad to the brave and hungry airmen and women at Nellis Air Force Base.

You see, the judges, led by the bald, lip-twitching Tom Colicchio (he of New York's Craft restaurant), weren't merely upset that she had prepared something that a bankrupt British public school might offer its pupils during a power outage.

They were distraught that, even when challenged, she thought the dish was good.

When all around her blanched at the blandness, Mistry was unbowed. So for her stubborn myopia, she had to hear the words that lead so many young chefs to tears, recriminations, Xanax and a job at the Outback Steakhouse: "Please pack your knives and go."

Mistry's reactions lay somewhere between blase and Buddhist. But she had already proved that she was incapable of shucking clams. Now here she was shirking criticism.

Regretfully, this was not the finest advertisement for the Google brand. Nor for the Google canteen.

After Woz's demise on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," the tech world continues its search for a reality TV breakthrough.

It is a troubling situation, one that should surely be discussed at the highest levels.

In its trial by social media, Domino's Pizza seems to already have been found guilty.

Two employees of the Domino's in Conover, N.C., made a video which featured one of them putting cheese up his nostrils (and then putting it on a sandwich) and passing a salami around his wind-passing backside (and then putting it on a sandwich).

The employees, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer, have been fired and charged with delivering prohibited goods.

Yet this is not the first time employees of fast-food outlets have used YouTube as an emotional outlet from their rewarding work.

Last year, Burger King fired an employee for making a video while bathing in the restaurant's kitchen sink and uploading it to MySpace. Yet the brand seems to march confidently on.

Why is this Domino's video appearing to have such a deleterious effect on the brand? Perhaps it's that it has simply gained a viral life far beyond its makers' expectations.

Or perhaps it's that in recessionary times people are relying far more on fast food to get through their budgetary week and are desperate, despite stories to the contrary, to know that these restaurants are sanitary.

While Ms. Hammonds and Mr. Setzer are at pains to point out that the food was not actually served (and, of course, we all believe them), the blog Good as You seems to have uncovered four videos in total featuring the pair.

And nauseating viewing they really do make. Especially the one showing, presumably, Mr. Setzer wiping a dish sponge on his bare backside.

Domino's first reaction, one of caution, has now been replaced by something that bears a resemblance to panic.

Domino's President Patrick Doyle has posted his own video to YouTube, in which he apologizes for the incident and attempts to reassure. His arguments seem reasonable.

However, as you watch it, you wonder if the video just might make things a little worse in the short term. Mr. Doyle fails to look into the camera. Instead his eyes peer at 45 degrees, presumably in the direction of a script. The effect is not reassuring.

What is even more unfortunate for Domino's is that the posting of the video apology has caused even more YouTube commentary about the company, some of it extremely unflattering.

And to think that just a couple of days ago, Domino's was madly touting its Bailout Package. It's Big Taste Bailout Package, to be precise. Will you be nosing through the Domino's menu tonight?

My CNET handler called today. He is the man who yanks at the dog lead permanently attached around my throat and croaks: "Write, puppy, write."

My handler said he had been present at last week's Crunchie awards, something to do with giving chocolate bars to fine new Internet companies. And he told me that he heard Google's Marissa Mayer whisper that in these times of infinite woe, more people were googling "recipes" than "restaurants."

The first thought that came into my mind was just one word: raccoon. You see, these brazen, beady-eyed burglars waft around my neighborhood fueled by the desire to eat everything I own. Yes, even my house. And whenever I see them, I wonder what they would taste like barbecued with some roast potatoes and a little broccoli.

Now I discover that raccoon is rapidly becoming the other dark meat. The raccoon apparently had pride of place in the first edition of the Joy Of Cooking in 1931. And here's the good news: you can buy one for between $3 and $7.

With that tiny outlay, one that simultaneously eliminates one of the lower-level civil servants of the animal world, you can feed five people.

Knock my trash cans over one more time and you might find yourself baked with apples.

(Credit: CC Michael Sheltgen)

Please enjoy these words, printed in the Kansas City Star, from Jeff Beringer, a furbearer resource biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation: "Raccoon meat is some of the healthiest meat you can eat. During grad school, my roommate and I ate 32 'coons one winter. It was all free, and it was really good. If you think about being green and eating organically, raccoon meat is the ultimate organic food."

Yes, those varminty scavengers who try to knock over my trash cans have no steroids, no antibiotics, no growth hormones--just my evil thoughts drifting around their systems.

If you are, by any chance, offered a raccoon by a man in a highway rest area, here's the simple test: Trappers chop only three of the raccoon's four paws off. This is simply to prove that the carcass is not that of a cat or a dog.

Thankfully, when you Google "raccoon recipes," the first one that comes up is from Cooks.com. It is, indeed, barbecued raccoon. And it sounds, I know you'll agree, very tasty.

I feel confident that the minute I post this elegy to one of man's favorite little critters, demand for raccoon cuisine creativity will shoot up. Perhaps there will soon be an edition of Top Chef devoted to the furry one. (Can there possibly be such a thing as rack of raccoon?)

I sincerely hope that Marissa and the other steaming brains at Google are fully prepared for a massive change in America's eating habits.